True Crime Report

Search Results: Miami (383)

Miami Cops Arrest “Notorious Beer Bandit” for Allegedly Trying to Steal Some Corona

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By on Felonious Stupidity
coronaPhoto by Sarah-Rose / Flickr

Beer theft is a pretty great racket. You steal beer, and then you drink it. It’s simple, it works, and even if you go to jail, your fellow inmates will probably treat you like a hero.

Miami’s most feared cerveza crook saw his reign of terror end today, though. Because the Miami Police Department very clearly has its priorities in order, MPD announced this afternoon that it has arrested a “notorious beer bandit,” just in time to protect South Florida’s very vulnerable stashes of Labor Day booze from getting seized. Here’s to the labor movement!

Miami Student Goes to Prison for Trying to Extort Ex-Porn Star on Social Media

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By on Blackmail
fiu-student-facebook-stalkingPhoto by Christopher / Flickr

Facebook friend requests from strangers almost always turn out to be bad news. In the best-case scenario, some weird guy from Turkmenistan insults your sister’s prom photos. In the worst-case: Someone creates a fake account, discovers hidden info about your past, and then threatens to release that information or kill you if you don’t pony up thousands of dollars.

That’s exactly what a former FIU student did to an anonymous California college student who had a secret past as a porn star. Now, the FIU student is headed to prison after trying to use that info to extort tens of thousands of dollars.

In June 2015, federal authorities say the California student, listed only as “S.B.” in court records, received a strange friend request from a former U.S. Marine named “Giovani.” But when S.B. accepted Giovani’s friend request, things turned ugly: “Giovani” was actually a 23-year-old Florida International University criminal-justice student named Kassandra Cruz, who’d discovered that S.B. had secretly dabbled in porn years ago.

Cruz immediately began to threaten her: She’d expose that secret to S.B.’s family and employer, she promised — and even threatened to kill her — unless S.B. coughed up $100,000.

Hitman Tied to Fidel Castro, Pablo Escobar’s Medellin Cartel Caught in Miami After 26 Years

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By on Cold Cases, Fugitives, Organized Crime
anibal_mustelierMiami-Dade County Department of Corrections

When the U.S. Marshals issued an arrest warrant for Anibal Mustelier back in 1995, Mustelier had a thick head of bushy brown hair sprouting atop his head. His face was unblemished, and light stubble gave his face a youthful glow.

After Mustelier, 66, was arrested on Sunday, his latest mugshot shows that his hair has faded to gray, and his goatee has turned shades of salt and pepper. His cheeks have sunken, and wrinkles snake across his forehead.

He had, after all, spent 26 years in hiding, after working as an alleged “contract killer” and hitman for Colombian drug cartels, including Pablo Escobar’s Medellin Cartel. Some even linked Mustelier, also known as “The Ghost,” to Fidel Castro himself.

According to a 2001 Sun-Sentinel report, Mustelier was “feared even by the toughest drug smugglers of Miami’s Cocaine Cowboy days, but at the same time he was an esteemed professional.”

But according to arrest reports obtained by New Times, Hialeah police finally caught the 5’4″ Mustelier after police say he was caught executing a bungled armed robbery on a Hialeah bank.

Someone is Stealing and Slaughtering Horses in Miami, SPCA Says

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By on Animal Cruelty, Unsolved
homestead_horse_legSouth Florida SPCA

This morning, a man riding through a fairly empty area of Homestead, Florida — a farming community Just southwest of Miami — pulled his horse to a screeching halt. He called Laurie Waggoner, director of branch operations for the South Florida Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, also known as the SPCA, and said he had found something awful.

“He saw the remains of a horse,” Waggoner tells New Times. “He said it was badly decomposed.” It was the second horse found slaughtered in Homestead in as many days, leading Waggoner and the SPCA to draw one frightening conclusion: “Someone’s stealing horses and butchering them,” she says.

Miami Model Arrested for Trying to Extort Money From YesJulz, the “Queen of Snapchat”

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By on Blackmail
yesjulzPhoto by George Martinez

This has been YesJulz’s year. With the exception of DJ Khaled, YesJulz (real name Julieanna Goddard, 26), is the biggest social-media star in America right now not named “Kardashian.” After getting her start promoting events for South Beach clubs such as LIV and Story, she now spends her time Snapchatting from parties while jet-setting around the world, leading the New York Times to call her “Snapchat Royalty” in June.

The minute she reached the top, it seems her competitors are already trying to tear her down: Miami Beach Police say they arrested two Broward County residents after they allegedly stole and/or hacked YesJulz’s all-powerful cell phone, found nude photos and videos on it, and then tried to extort $18,000 from her, lest they release those photos to the public.

Feds Seize $600,000 Propeller Plane in Miami From Notorious Colombian Drug Lord

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By on Organized Crime
beechcraft_b_200_king_air (1)Carlos Menendez San Juan via Flickr Creative Commons

Dear non-Miami residents: This city is trying to move on from its days as the nation’s drug-crime capital. We’ve built an entirely new, “hip” neighborhood miles from the beach, where the world’s best visual artists visit every December. We’re trying to invest in startups. We even might ban liquor sales on Ocean Drive after 2 a.m.

But damn if our decades-long Colombian drug-cartel habit isn’t hard to kick. Case in point: Last week, the U.S. government filed paperwork in the Southern District of Florida to seize a $600,000 propeller plane allegedly used to run “multi-kilogram shipments of cocaine” between Colombia, Panama, the Caribbean, and the United States on behalf of famed — and currently incarcerated — drug lord Daniel Barrera Barrera.

Armed Robbers in South Beach, Miami Get Busted Due to Cell Trackers and Sheer Stupidity

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By on Felonious Stupidity, Robbery, Stupid Criminals
sobemugsphotos via Miami-Dade Corrections; montage by David Cypkin/rakontur

Three weeks ago, Miami Beach police rolled out a new crime fighting initiative aimed at stemming a tide of robberies in South Beach, and they’ve had some recent success. Some of the arrests may be due to beefed up manpower and squads of detectives working longer hours (with overtime benefits, of course.)

Notorious Miami Con Man Jimmy Sabatino Caught Running Fake-Record-Executive Scheme from Inside Prison Again

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By on Prison Life, Repeat Offenders
jimmy_sabatinoCourtesy of Baby T

In 2013, Miami New Times called Jimmy Sabatino Florida’s “most notorious con man.” For a con man, the word “notorious” basically means “has been caught a bunch of times,” so we’ll refrain from calling the 39-year-old “talented” — but damn if he isn’t persistent.

Case in point: Federal authorities said Thursday that Sabatino has once again been caught posing as a Sony record executive from prison in order to steal valuable property from people. That’s the same ruse that allowed Sabatino to build and blow several ill-gotten fortunes in the past.

A Very Detailed History of Miami’s Crackdowns on Sex and Nudity

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By on Sex Crimes
Pasted_Image_6_28_16__7_17_PMPhoto by Giulio Sciorio

Mention Miami today to an out-of-towner, and a few images immediately pop to mind: Crockett and Tubbs in glorious pastel, white-sand beaches, and lots of extremely attractive people in scant clothing bathing in the sun. Miami is sexy. There is no denying it.

But at heart the Magic City is also a good old-fashioned, puritanical Southern town. And Miami has a long, ridiculous history of cracking down on sex and nudity.

Bags Full of Body Parts Found Off Miami’s Palmetto Expressway

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By on Bizarre
palmettoexpresswayImage via Google Maps

The action in Carl Hiaasen’s Miami crime novel debut Tourist Season begins when a body is found floating down a river in a suitcase. That was very much fiction, but the idea of body parts being found stuffed into weird things in weird places remains very much a chilling reality in Miami.

Today, Miami Gardens police found two bags full of body parts that were hidden in the brush right off the embankment of the Palmetto Expressway. The discovery happened late in the morning. The location was near NW 12th Avenue.

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